Sharknado vs. Meth-Quake

The tornado vs. earthquake debate has always been a source of conversation between Okies and Californians —

I just don’t see how you can live where:

A)  giant vacuum cleaner storms can scoop you and your homes up into the sky, or
B)  the ground can just start shaking and collapse your whole town

Thankfully, the oil and gas fracking boom has given Oklahoma just a little taste of the California experience by increasing the size and frequency of earthquakes in the Sooner State.

When the Seismological Society of America says that fracking earthquakes are a real thing, then it’s a good bet that they are. The annual SSA meeting last Thursday featured a daylong session on “Induced Seismicity” that featured new research indicating that oil and gas fracking, and the practice of disposing wastewater underground, can alter the character of an existing fault. 

As of last month, in Oklahoma alone more than 100 3.0-and-up earthquakes have been recorded. The total between 1967 and 2000 was only 21. This recent increase jumps out from any statistical noise like a group of Westboro Baptist protesters at a military funeral.

A study by Canada’s Western University in Ontario noted that “the hazard from induced seismicity can overwhelm the hazard from pre-existing natural seismicity, increasing the risk to structures that were originally designed for regions of low to moderate seismic activity”, the term infrastructure including dams, nuclear power plants, underground pipelines and other sorts of high-impact damage multipliers.

I’m not sure if we could match “Sharknado” for it’s California charm, but I could see “Meth-Quake”  giving it a run for it’s money.

Yeah, the Feds  take down a major clandestine lab in central Oklahoma and decide to dispose of all the toxic chemical slurry in an injection well. This triggers the Big One and it spews mutant-inducing methamphetamine residue out of every crack in the ground! Try to imagine the trailer below with Charlton Heston in meth-mouth dentures, the actors with Oklahoma regional dialects and all the extras gibbering and running really fast!

Ten years later, everything ‘Right’ is still wrong!

Hey, even ten years later it’s amazing just how wrong the neo-cons were about EVERYTHING. Good thing they are completely reviled by society now. Wait, what?!!

“Stooped to a new low”: Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said Tuesday that the National Rifle Association owes the people of Newtown, Conn. an apology for flooding them with gun-crazy robo-calls, adding that he was “astonished” and “outraged” by the gun-nut group’s actions. That’s your dues at work, NRA members! Stay classy!

Go back to handling your snakes, gang: Tennessee lawmakers were suspicious that a new mop sink might be part of a secret Muslim plot to impose Sharia or something.

Former South Carolina GOP executive director Todd Kincannon shows his support for the US military. You gotta love the way he just oozes patriotism!

One patient’s leukemia was cured only eight days after receiving a new gene therapy treatment. A second trial of 50 patients is being readied, and the team is looking into using the technique to treat other cancers.

Zorin had it right! A new study in the journal Geology is the latest to tie a string of unusual earthquakes, in this case, in central Oklahoma, to the injection of waste-water deep underground. Researchers now say that the magnitude 5.7 earthquake near Prague, Okla., on Nov. 6, 2011, may also be the largest ever linked to waste-water injection.

Today the Korean Central News Agency announced “From this moment, the Supreme Command of the Korean People’s Army will be putting into combat duty posture No. 1 all field artillery units, including long-range artillery units and strategic rocket units, that will target all enemy objects in the U.S. invasionary bases on its mainland, Hawaii and Guam.” They then added “All your base are belong to us!“.

Why on Earth would the Dear Leader ‘shoop photos of the North Korean Democratic People’s Army and Will Work for Food Brigade’s triumphant hovercraft assault prowess?

Ten minutes into oral arguments over whether or not homosexuals should be allowed to marry, the Supreme Court cut short legal proceedings Tuesday and ruled that gay marriage was “perfectly fine” and that the court could “care less who marries whom.” (Parody, but in a just world..?)

Oops!: Fox News peddles conspiracy theory it already debunked!

Just how constant is the speed of light in a vacuum? Well, that depends, according to new experiments. What does it matter? ‘c’ impacts many fields, and even the length of a meter is defined by this supposedly immutable constant.

A clip from the little known film, “Silence of the Anime”.